WASHINGTON — A group of senators has reintroduced legislation to designate the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group as a foreign terrorist organization.
The bipartisan group, which includes Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, and Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi, targets the Wagner Group through the Holding Accountable Russian Mercenaries (HARM) Act.
The bill would require Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate the Wagner Group as a terror organization under section 219(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The proposal also includes measures that would apply to any organization that would either be an affiliate or a future successor of the Wagner Group.
“Putin’s unprovoked and illegal war against Ukraine has been made more deadly because of the Wagner Group,” Cardin said in a statement. “These mercenaries have been credibly linked to countless atrocities in Ukraine as well as Syria and across the African continent. The U.S. must step up and immediately designate the Wagner Group as the terrorists they are. It is the best way to hold them and Russia accountable for their human rights violations.”
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February, the Wagner Group, a paramilitary organization of mercenaries, has operated as a private military for Russian President Vladimir Putin and has supplemented depleted Russian forces.
Cardin said the proposed measure aims to diminish the strength of Putin’s military forces. The war in Ukraine reached its one-year anniversary on Feb. 24.
The Wagner Group — which has run operations not only in Ukraine but in African countries such as Mali, Sudan, and the Central African Republic — has also delivered weapons to North Korea and engaged in multiple atrocities, including using nerve agents against members of the public, killing journalists and committing acts of sex trafficking, torture and rape.
While the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control recently labeled the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization, the newly reintroduced legislation would go a step further.
Designating the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization would not only continue to show the United States’ support of Ukraine, but it would also allow for stricter financial sanctions to be levied against the organization.
The Bureau of Counterterrorism at the State Department lists five main implications for designating a group as a terrorist organization: it supports efforts to curb terrorism financing and encourages other nations to follow suit; it internationally stigmatizes and isolates designated terrorist organizations; it deters donations or contributions and economic transactions; it heightens public awareness of terrorist organizations; and it signals to other governments the U.S. concern about named organizations.
“We must hold the Wagner Group and any who support these terrorists accountable for the atrocities they have committed across the globe,” Wicker said in a statement.
Cardin and Wicker were joined on the legislation by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, Marco Rubio, R-Florida, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island.
“This is an important designation as it provides the United States even more tools to hold this organization accountable for their heinous behavior,” Graham said in a statement.
The reintroduction of this legislation also follows the European Parliament, which last November condemned the Wagner Group and declared Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.